Update #5 L.A. Team

It’s the LA team again! As I’m writing this we are back in our tent where it’s now passed midnight on our last night here at the mission. We are sad to leave because we have touched people’s hearts in different ways where we saw God really work throughout our week. During each night of our team debriefs everyone on the team would share where they saw God that day, it could be through a person or a moment. It was very interesting and touching to see how and where God touched us individually. Also, every night one person from our team would share their life story with the team. Tonight was my night to share where my team just could not stop laughing. It was nice that I could share it with them where throughout this week our team has been growing closer and closer.

Therefore, let’s wind it back a little bit. The past few days we have been very busy. There’s so much to share with you all but here are somethings that stood out to me. We have been in the child care room a couple of times where we spent a few hours with the children where we were all overjoyed and so were the kids. The kids would get attached to us and when they saw us outside of childcare they would run into our arms with huge smiling faces. I remember the first day I was in the room just standing there watching the kids come through and this little girl walks in the door and just ran to me and jumped straight into my arms. Her and I spent time playing with toys and coloring. After we left, the kids tried to run after us where each team member made an impact on a child which I really enjoyed seeing. Later, that little girl and her sister found me and one of my team members where they remembered us and just ran towards us. This filled our hearts up to see that we are filling there’s and making a difference in there lives by being there, we extended the childcare hours because we didn’t want to leave.

Furthermore, we spent a couple times in the basement with a man that’s in charge of all the items that are donated to the mission. We spent some good time in there with him on the first day where he asked us to come back. We sorted boxes of items and food where we truly showed teamwork. He shared his life story with us and kept expressing how much we meant to him being there helping him. Thinking of teamwork, we served a different meal time each day. We worked as a team to prepare, pass out dinner, wipe down tables, and more. We interacted with the same and different people in the kitchen where they enjoyed our presence and work we have done. Today we done a water walk, we took cases of water on a cart and walked outside of the mission passing out water on the streets to people that were around the mission. Thinking of the streets, last night we walked a block down to a church where every Wednesday there is karaoke with the homeless. We had a blast seeing God within these people by hearing stories and watching them have fun even though they are going through hard times. It’s now 1am so I’m going to end this update with how I saw God yesterday. I was working with one of the head ladies in the kitchen throughout all the lunch sessions. I saw so much grace in her when she had to establish rules and how she was handling situations with people. We were in the middle of the lunch room passing out drinks where it was stressful because things would start to get out of hand between people. It was nice having her on my side and hearing her life story and of course about her grandkids.

See you soon! – Alexis (Lexi)

P.S. Adding to the last update, God is touching us in many ways on this mission trip where we want our minds to be present, so we aren’t around our phones.